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Any recommendations? I have been using Brasso but it has been taking forever and takes a lot of elbow grease, and it doesn't seem to work super well on NS. Thanks!

I like mothers mag polish

LeMark wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 12:32 pm I like mothers mag polish

I use that for heavily tarnished silver. I wasn't aware it would work on brass. I'll give it a shot.

LeMark wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 12:32 pm I like mothers mag polish

Same here. It works very well!

Flitz original works well for me on my raw brass sousaphone bell.

Wenol.

Rick "like Simicrome but cheaper and better with brass" Denney

arphark wrote:it has been taking forever and takes a lot of elbow grease

...this (depending on the size of the job), not so much:

bloke wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 7:31 pm

arphark wrote:it has been taking forever and takes a lot of elbow grease

...this (depending on the size of the job), not so much:

I have a 1/6 hp buffer, but ain't no way I'm doing a whole tooba with that.

Maybe there'll be a bigger one in my barn, some day...

I have one of those. I need new buffing wheels for it

This stuff. Works amazingly well & requires a minimum of effort.

Let's understand what's happening here. The first step is to remove tarnish, and the second step is to polish the metal. For silver-plated instruments, we want to remove tarnish but not do any significant polishing. A buffer, even using the finest rouge (that red waxy cake that Joe showed) will burn through silverplate in a flash. It takes a lot of skill and feel to know how much power buffing is safe for silver, and in my view amateurs should avoid it. Wenol (and similar) on a rag will remove tarnish effectively, and usually provides an extremely mild polish to shine it up with nearly no removal, when applied by hand using a rag.

On brass, stuff like Wenol will remove oxidation and shine up the brass if the brass has a polished surface already, but if the brass has lost its polish it will benefit from buffing, and that's where the power buffer helps.

But power buffers, like all power tools, are dangerous. They work by removing (literally grinding it away) the part of the metal that isn't shine. A powerful buffer can take what you are buffing out of your hands and throw it at the floor before you even realize it happened. And it can wear down an edge and round it over in 2 or 3 seconds, removing material you can never get back, if that edge is important. There are techniques that minimize these risks, and skills that minimize them further. I've buffed a lot of metal, only some of it on tubas, for many years and there's no way I'm bringing my silver-plated, 28-pound, 44" tall, enormously expensive hand-hammered Hirsbrunner to a power buffer. But I didn't have any reluctance to push my under-a-grand Giardinelli/B&S against a power buffer.

I note that the power buffer that Bloke uses is a good deal more powerful than the one he pictured, at least the last time I saw his shop. His was belt driven with what looked like a 2- or 3-HP motor. It can tie even big tuba parts in knots easily if the operator gets crosswise with it. The Grizzly he pictured isn't on their web site, but the ones that are have a 1-HP motor (or less). The one he pictured has a nice magnetic switch. (Looking at the shaft extenders gives me an idea for an easy lathe project, by the way. My current buffer is a 1-HP motor that I'm using as a bench motor with a tapered buff arbor, but as is usually the case the buffing wheel is too close to the motor. Easy to fix.)

Rick "Wenol on a rag for routine shining up and tarnish removal" Denney

If I use a power buffer on silver plating I usually don't put much of anything on the wheel as far as abrasive material - even keeping the amount of fine rouge dust on the wheel to a minimum, and that keeps me pretty safe.

Gold plating doesn't visit buffing machines here at blokeplace... at least not admittedly in writing on a public forum.

The topic title - though - is things to use to polish nonferrous base metals, yes?

I have two or three fractional horse machines, and a couple of multihorse machines. My most powerful multihorse machine is one that I set up the belt tension based on balance - rather than bolt or spring tension or anything like that. I have the motor gravity balanced at a particular point whereby if I start pushing too hard - or if the wheel grabs a smock or something like that, the belt is going to slip past the pulley. I have no idea whether OSHA would approve, but I approve, and I'm the only person who I allow to use it.

I guess (??) I should own some sort of product like that.

When I really want something that I can put on a rag that's sort of wet-ish (to polish non-ferrous metals like brass, bronze, nickel-brass, etc.), I put a tiny amount of lacquer thinner in a dish, crumble up some tripoli (from a bar of it), and mix them together.

Tripoli - though - is so greasy that I usually just run a rag through the tripoli.

If I actually want to "polish" something (shiny) beyond that, I run a rag through a bar of jeweler's rouge.

eh?

bloke "I'm a southerner, so maybe these tacks are way too hillbilly-ish..."

I just remember that when I was a freshman in college several centuries ago, the ROTC members in my dorm used to use dilute sulfuric acid on their brass uniform buttons. It was very effective, very quick, and involved virtually no physical "polishing" effort.

ghmerrill wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 2:57 pm I just remember that when I was a freshman in college several centuries ago, the ROTC members in my dorm used to use dilute sulfuric acid on their brass uniform buttons. It was very effective, very quick, and involved virtually no physical "polishing" effort.

Welcome to Tuba Forum @ghmerrill (Gary)!!